Hans Christian Andersen
The Danish fairy tales, told slowly: single stories for one night, collections for many.
Hans Christian Andersen published his fairy tales in Denmark nearly two hundred years ago, and they were written to be read aloud. The sentences already sit at a storyteller's rhythm; our recordings only slow them further.
The single tales fit inside one night. Thumbelina follows a girl no bigger than a thumb through a long journey home, a wandering shape that suits a wandering mind. The Little Mermaid runs deeper: the original is more aching than any film version, a story of longing and sacrifice rather than a romance with a wedding at the end. It is beautiful sleep listening, but know which story you are getting.
The collections cover more ground. Elizabeth Grace's Hans Christian Andersen Short Stories on The Sleepy Bookshelf pairs two of his lesser-known tales, useful when the famous ones are worn smooth from childhood. Andrew Bond's Fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen on Send Me To Sleep gathers the best-loved stories in one place, so on undecided nights the queue makes the choice.
